Jio customers to remain loyal even with paid services: Report

As Jio will make its services paid from April 1, 2017, it was thought that many customers may stop subscribing to it, but a research conducted by brokerage firm Bernstein showed opposite trend.

"We expected many people would appreciate the `free` Jio offer but be critical regarding voice quality - with many likely to move back to their primary operator once they were forced to pay. What we see is the opposite," the report stated. Bernstein is a Wall Street research and brokerage firm.

"Jio scores highest overall on customer loyalty -- and outscores the incumbents on customer service, convenience, data coverage, data speeds, and handset choice. They also outscored Vodafone and Idea in voice quality and voice coverage," it added.

The report also stated that most of the 2G/3G users in the sample test expect to upgrade to 4G within the next year, and 80% say they will consider Jio when they do.

The survey also gave some insight on the critical question of what percent of Jio users will decide to stay and pay Rs 303 a month.

"Despite 67% of users classifying their existing Jio SIM as `secondary`, a full 63% of these users said they plan to make Jio their new primary operator and a further 28% said they would continue to use Jio as a second SIM. 

"Only 2% of existing Jio users said they will give up their SIM. It`s possible the new `matching offers` by the incumbents will push the take-rate down a bit? but the extremely high starting numbers indicates things will continue to be tough," the report added.

Bernstein said it sampled 1,000 predominantly high value users drawn from across India. 

"40% of respondents are from the Metro circles, 30% A-circles, 20% B-circles and 10% C-circles. 95% live in urban areas and only 5% report that they live in a rural area," the report added.